Month: September 2018

Less than 24 hours after President Trump bowed to pressure from Senate Republicans and ordered the FBI to conduct a one-week long “supplemental background investigation” into allegations of sexual misconduct facing SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh, the federal judge’s second accuser, Deborah Ramirez, who attended Yale with Kavanaugh in the early 1980s, has already agreed to cooperate with the probe after being contacted by the bureau, the Washington Post reported. 

The FBI is also investigating allegations by Christine Blasey Ford, the psychology professor at Palo Alto University in California, whose tearful dramatic testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week nearly derailed Kavanaugh’s nomination – that is, until he stepped up and delivered an impassioned denial that satisfied President Trump and Senate Republicans. Ford claims that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in the early 1980s when they were in high school in Maryland. Ramirez told the New Yorker that Kavanaugh pulled out his penis and shoved it in her face during a drunken dorm room party during their freshman year at Yale.

Ramirez’s lawyer confirmed that she would cooperate with the investigation, but declined to comment further.

“We can confirm the FBI has reached out to interview Ms. Ramirez and she has agreed to cooperate with their investigation,” the attorney, John Clune, said in a statement. “Out of respect for the integrity of the process, we will have no further comment at this time.”

In addition to at least two of Kavanaugh’s named accusers (two women more women have anonymously accused him of misconduct though their claims are widely viewed as not credible), several of the alleged witnesses whom Ford said also attended the party where the assault allegedly occurred have agreed to cooperate.

But already, two potentially crucial witnesses have said they will cooperate with the FBI, raising the possibility that at least more statements and recollections will be added to the record, even if they’re not ultimately definitive.  

An attorney for Leland Keyser, a friend of Ford’s who Ford says was at the party, said Keyser also was willing to cooperate with the FBI investigation. But the attorney emphasized that Keyser has no recollection of the party where Ford alleges Kavanaugh assaulted her.

“Notably, Ms. Keyser does not refute Dr. Ford’s account, and she has already told the press that she believes Dr. Ford’s account,” the attorney, Howard J. Walsh III, wrote in an email to the Senate Judiciary Committee. “However, the simple and unchangeable truth is that she is unable to corroborate it because she has no recollection of the incident in question.”

Judge, the high school friend of Kavanaugh who Ford says was in the room during the alleged assault, has also agreed to cooperate with the FBI. His account has been particularly sought after because, unlike Kavanaugh, Judge has not denied Ford’s allegations but has said he has no memory that such an assault occurred.

Ford told the Judiciary Committee that some weeks after the alleged assault, she ran into Judge at a local grocery store where he was working for the summer.

As WaPo reminds us, the FBI’s investigation is merely a background check, not a criminal probe. Notably, sex crime prosecutor Rachel Mitchell, who questioned both Kavanaugh and Ford on Thursday, said she wouldn’t be able to pursue an investigation or even request a search warrant given Ford’s testimony.

A background investigation is, by its nature, more limited than a criminal probe, and FBI agents will not be able to obtain search warrants or issue subpoenas to compel testimony from potential witnesses. The FBI’s interviews, which will take a few days to conduct, won’t turn into a sprawling inquest of everyone Kavanaugh went to a party with in high school, said a person familiar with the investigation.

The paper also reminded readers, perhaps with a dash of tongue-in-cheek irony, that the results of the investigation would only be shared with a small group of senators and would not become public (though we imagine they will almost inevitably leak).

The FBI’s findings will not necessarily become public. When investigators have completed their work, anything they’ve discovered will be turned over to the White House as an update to Kavanaugh’s background check file. The White House would then likely share the material with the Senate committee.

At that point, all senators, as well as a very small group of aides, would have access to it.

The White House or the Senate would decide what, if anything, should be released publicly. The bureau’s work will likely consist mostly of reports of interviews with witnesses and accusers. The bureau will not come to a conclusion on whether the accusations are credible and will not make a recommendation on what should become of Kavanaugh’s nomination.

While Democrats heralded the probe as an unmitigated win for their stalling strategy, there’s still a solid chance that it could backfire. As Bloomberg’s Jennifer Jacobs revealed, high school friends of Ford and Kavanaugh say the investigation could uncover some “fairly unpleasant things” about Ford’s behavior.

A person who knew both Kavanaugh and Ford in high school tells me:

“This FBI mini investigation is going to uncover some fairly unpleasant things about the witnesses. I hope that stuff stays private.”

Friends from back then aren’t talking with one another about it — too toxic. https://t.co/mkEIJXPVfw

— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) September 29, 2018

Despite the dramatic footage teased to the media by Showtime, which recorded an interview with Michael Avenatti client Julie Swetnick, the third woman to publicly accuse Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct (she claimed that Kavanaugh and Judge participated in the “gang rapes” of disoriented young women at parties back in high school), NBC News and the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday afternoon that the White House has limited the FBI investigation to Ramirez and Ford, and has not permitted the FBI to interview Swetnick. While some accused the White House of “micromanaging” the FBI probe, and a spokesperson for the White House said the parameters of the investigation were actually set by the Senate, which said it wanted to limit the probe to only “credible” accusers, NBC reported that it isn’t unusual for the White House to set these types of boundaries for background-check investigations, since the FBI is conducting the investigation on behalf of the White House.

Avenatti was, understandably, less than pleased.

“I don’t know how this investigation could be called complete if they don’t contact her,” Avenatti said.

Here’s the teaser of the Swetnick interview, which is set to air Sunday night:

Regardless of what Ramirez tells the FBI – whether it’s stunningly revelatory or utterly mundane – we imagine it will leak to WaPo or the New York Times by mid-week.

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Just one day after the SEC sued Elon Musk for securities fraud, in a move that shocked many who were skeptical the US regulator would do anything more than slap a few wrists – an action which it took only after it emerged that Musk had turned down a settlement offer from the SEC in the last minute – Musk, having seen TSLA stock tank the most in three years on Friday, changed his mind once again, and agreed to settle the case.

According to a settlement filing posted on the case docket on September 29, the SEC settlement is on almost identical terms to the deal he had rejected as recently as Thursday morning: it will require Musk to step down for 3 years as Chairman (up from two years in the 1st deal), pay a $20 million fine, comply with Tesla’s mandatory procedures for how to tweet going forward, however it means he will be able to continue as the company’s CEO and return as Chairman after 3 short years.

As part of the deal, Musk will also neither admit nor deny guilt, effectively confirming that all those who were skeptical of the SEC’s regulatory interests, were correct after all as the settlement now makes any potential criminal case far more complicated.

In short: securities fraud will get most ordinary people thrown in prison, but if you can afford $20 million and temporarily losing a token title in your resume, you get away scott-free.

Here are the key sections in the settlement filing that hit the SEC vs Musk docket late on Saturday afternoon:

Without admitting or denying the allegations of the complaint (except as provided herein in paragraph 13 and except as to personal jurisdiction as to this matter only and subject matter jurisdiction, which Defendant admits), Defendant hereby consents to the entry of the final Judgment in the form attached hereto (the “Final Judgment”) and incorporated by reference herein, which, among other things:

(a) permanently restrains and enjoins Defendant from violation of Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the “Exchange Act”) [15 U.S.C. § 78j(b)] and Rule 10b-5 thereunder [17 C.F.R. § 240.10b-5];

(b) orders Defendant to pay a civil penalty in the amount of $20,000,000 under Section 21(d)(3) of the Exchange Act [15 U.S.C. § 78u(d)(3)]; and

(c) requires Defendant to comply with the undertaking set forth in this Consent and incorporated in the Final Judgment

Here is what Musk will have to do next:

Defendant undertakes to:

(a) resign from his role as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Tesla, Inc. (“Chairman”) within forty-five (45) days of the filing of this Consent and agree not to seek reelection or to accept an appointment as Chairman for a period of three years thereafter. Upon request by Defendant, the Commission staff may grant in its sole discretion an extension to the deadline set forth above;

(b) comply with all mandatory procedures implemented by Tesla, Inc. (the “Company”) regarding (i) the oversight of communications relating to the Company made in any format, including, but not limited to, posts on social media (e.g., Twitter), the Company’s website (e.g., the Company’s blog), press releases, and investor calls, and (ii) the pre-approval of any such written communications that contain, or reasonably could contain, information material to the Company or its shareholders; and

News of the settlement could prompt another vicious round of short covering on Monday as the threat of Musk losing his CEO role at the company now appears to be gone.

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After a month of tense negotiations and with one day to go until the Sept. 30th deadline, the US and Canada are poised to announce a deal on Nafta in the last minute, ending the impasse that has jeopardized $500 billion in annual trade between the two North American neighbors, Bloomberg reports citing people familiar with the talks.

The reason for the scramble – which also includes a “heavily involved” Justin Trudeau as well as Jared Kushner – to announce a deal by Sunday is so that it can be signed by Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto before he leaves office, one month after the U.S. and Mexico reached their own bilateral agreement, triggering talks between the U.S. and Canada, which are being held around the clock this weekend. Under U.S. trade law, an agreement must be published for 60 days before it can be signed by leaders of any of the participant countries, putting negotiators on the clock to reach a deal that can be signed by Nov. 30, Pena Nieto’s final day in office.

So who “bent the knee?”

While the final document has yet to be published, the Globe and Mail reports that the Trump administration was ready to concede to Canada’s wish to keep Chapter 19′s dispute-settlement mechanism in place in exchange for greater access for U.S. dairy products.

Canada is prepared to allow U.S. dairy into Canada at rates that are higher than the 3.2 per cent under the eleven country Trans-Pacific partnership, sources said. Ottawa also made concessions on section 7, which is part of the country’s milk classification system that is used to set prices for skim milk, whole milk powder and protein concentrates. Canada was also ready to agree to the same arrangement as Mexico to raise its duty-free limit to $100, according to a source. Canada’s duty free is currently $20.

A senior Canadian official involved in the talks said there is no final written sign-off on Chapter 19 or dairy access but the insider said the two sides are close to a deal.

The talks had taken on a frenetic pace over the last 24 hours with Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of President Donald Trump, pushing for a deal before Sunday’s deadline to start a 60-day countdown to a final revamped pact being signed by the end of November.

While the two sides held off a plan to public the legal text of the agreement on Friday, the U.S. and Canada, which is the main export partner for the vast majority of US states, have reportedly solved, or made progress on the major outstanding issues, with sources saying that “at this stage no issue seems too large to overcome.”

“Most of the big issues are solved with Canada”, Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro said Saturday in an interview with Fox News. “It’s a great deal for all three countries in that it would make this hemisphere strong again from a manufacturing point of view.”

Meanwhile, at least one Canadian government official familiar with the talks, poured some cold water on the rising enthusiasm and said the nations had been at this stage before, and that nothing is final. Specifically, Canada’s demands for protection from U.S. tariff measures is one of the last sticking points in negotiations.

Some of the major outstanding hurdles that have blocked a deal, include:

• So-called Chapter 19 dispute panels, which the U.S. wants to eliminate from Nafta and which Canada wants to preserve
• An exemption for cultural sectors which Canada wants to preserve
• The use of Section 232 investigations to apply tariffs to steel, aluminum, and potentially autos. Canada is seeking some kind of exemption or protection from those
• Canada’s dairy sector, which the U.S. wants greater tariff-free access to
• Intellectual property and certain pharmaceutical patents, each of which the U.S. wants to extend

Of the above, The globe reports that the key item is U.S. negotiators’ unwillingness to remove 25% tariffs imposed on Canadian steel and aluminum.

A failure to real a deal in the next 24 hours could also jeopardize the already concluded deal between the US and Mexico, as any bilateral deal without Canada would face delays in Congress, where key lawmakers have called for the three-nation format to continue.

Meanwhile, the existing Nafta remains in effect, and any country can quit on six months’ notice; no country has given such notice.

Ultimately, the failure to reach a deal raises the prospect of what some call a zombie Nafta – a bilateral deal advancing to update a trilateral pact, even while the old agreement remains in place. A former senior Canadian trade adviser warned that the auto tariff threat, which would be “devastating” to the Canadian economy, outweighs anything else.

“The threats to Canada are much bigger than a potential zombie Nafta; the threats come in the form of auto tariffs that would be very devastating to our economy,” said Meredith Lilly, trade adviser to Canada’s former prime minister, Stephen Harper, and now Simon Reisman Chair in International Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa. “The risk of auto tariffs shouldn’t be underestimated.”

Trump has repeatedly threatened to slap Canada with auto tariffs if Ottawa refuses to negotiate. If a Nafta deal is reached, the U.S. government would see little reason to impose auto tariffs on Canada, but it was unclear whether there would be any hard exemption granted. Of course, if over the next 24 hours a deal is announced, all of the above would be moot and Trump’s unorthodox negotiating style will have successfully resolved yet another major trade milestone.

The globe reports that there are tentative plans for Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland to hold a news conference announcing a deal either Sunday night or Monday morning if there is a successful conclusion, but an “insider” cautioned the talks are still ongoing and Kushner and Robert Lighthizer still have to get sign off from President Trump; that in itself, can be “problematic.”

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Former Trump strategist Steve Bannon said on Friday that attorney Michael Avenatti could become the Democratic nominee for president in 2020. 

Speaking with Bill Maher about the state of the Democratic party, Bannon agreed with the HBO host that Avenatti – lawyer to porn star Stormy Daniels and Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s “gang rape” accuser – can capture the left with his bravado and plain spoken language.

“The guy who’s the outsider, who like blows through the regular politician because he looks different and he’s got balls,” said Maher – to which Bannon replied: “If Bernie Sanders had an ounce of Avenatti’s fearlessness, he would have been the Democratic nominee and we would have had a much tougher time beating him.” 

“Bernie doesn’t have fearlessness?” asked Maher.

“Not like Avenatti,” Bannon replied. “I’ve not done any due diligence on this guy, but I tell you he’s got a fearlessness and he’s a fighter. I think he’ll go through a lot of this field if he decides to stick with it.“

“I don’t happen to think a professional politician is going to be there at the end of the day. I’ve always said it’s going to be an Oprah or an Avenatti — somebody who’s more media savvy,” said Bannon. 

“You’re gonna have Trump on the right, a politician, maybe a Kamala Harris or somebody on the left, and I think you’ll have a Bloomberg or a Romney or somebody in the center,” Bannon concluded. “I think it will be a three-way race.”

Watch: 

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Authored by Whitney Webb via Mint Press News

The transparency organization WikiLeaks just released a new document that sheds light on the corruption behind a lucrative French-German arms deal with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), weapons that are currently being used to wage a disastrous and genocidal war against the people of Yemen.

The document details a court case from the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) International Court of Arbitration regarding a dispute over a “commission payment” made to Abbas Ibrahim Yousef Al-Yousef, an Emirati businessman, as part of a $3.6 billion arms deal between France’s state-owned weapons company Nexter Systems (then GIAT Industries SA) and the UAE. Per the deal, which was signed in 1993 and set to conclude in 2008, the UAE purchased 388 Leclerc combat tanks, 46 armored vehicles, 2 training tanks, and spare parts, as well as ammunition.

Those weapons have been an important part of the UAE and Saudi coalition’s war in Yemen since it began in 2015. The war has killed over ten thousand civilians, largely the result of the Saudi/UAE bombing campaign, which has targeted and crippled the country’s civilian infrastructure. The result of those bombings, as well as of the UAE/Saudi blockade of Yemen, has been over 17 million people near starvation – including 5.2 million children – and preventable disease epidemics that have claimed tens of thousands of additional lives.

The court case described in the leaked document resulted from a claim made by Al-Yousef that Nexter Systems had failed to honor its commitment to pay him a 6.5 percent commission fee on the arms deal, amounting to a $235 million dollars. Nexter Systems made payments regularly for a period of time to the Emirati businessman, totalling over $195 million, through Al-Yousef’s company, Kenoza Consulting & Management Inc. Al-Yousef demanded that the company pay him the nearly $40 million that remained outstanding.

However, subsequent arguments from Nexter Systems’ lawyers asserted that payments stopped because of French anti-corruption legislation enacted in 2000, and that Al-Yousef’s business “intended to commit and indeed committed corruption acts.” Nexter Systems effectively claimed in court that the exorbitant “commission fee” given to Al-Yousef was for the use of bribing government officials of the UAE and apparently other countries so that Nexter Systems could secure the $3.6 billion weapons contract. However, the ICC tribunal did not rule on this point, as they claimed that Nexter’s proof for this allegation lacked sufficient evidence.

Yet, the tribunal did seek to determine why Al-Yousef had been able to justify the excessive commission fee, especially considering that he did not play an important role in the development of the Leclerc tanks. In investigating this point, the tribunal found that Al-Yousef had convinced German officials to waive Germany’s then-ban on providing German-made weapons to Middle Eastern nations like the UAE — a necessary step, as the Leclerc tanks were fitted with German engines.

RELEASE. Dealmaker: Secret ruling by ICC arbitration court on alleged corruption linked to $3.6 billion French/German/UAE arms deal. https://t.co/GLQTyaZBdV pic.twitter.com/cfoP80LN8t

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) September 28, 2018

According to Al-Yousef’s witness statements, the way in which he obtained this waiver “involved decision-makers at the highest levels, both in France and Germany,” though Al-Yousef failed to remember the names of the German officials and claimed to have not met them directly.

The tribunal ultimately determined that there was no good reason for Al-Yousef’s exorbitant commission fee. Yet, the arguments from Nexter Systems as well as the statements from Al-Yousef himself regarding his “lobbying” of anonymous German officials, suggest that the approximate payment of $190 million was indeed used to commit “corruption acts.”

That was then, that is also now

Though the corruption detailed in the newly leaked document took place decades ago, it highlights how lucrative arms deals are often enough incentive for governments and private companies to bend the rules in order to ensure that weapons and payments for weapons continue to flow unimpeded.

France today – despite the gravity of the Yemen conflict and the clear involvement of the UAE and Saudi Arabia in committing war crimes – continues to supply the UAE/Saudi coalition with weapons, even though doing so violates its own laws. Indeed, a recent report published by French law firm Ancile Avocat asserted that France’s continued sale of weapons to the two Gulf countries responsible for the carnage and chaos in Yemen was a violation of France’s status as a signatory of the International Arms Trade Treaty, ratified in 2014.

Since the conflict in Yemen began, France’s government has argued that the UAE and the Saudis are using those weapons for “defensive purposes,” despite clear evidence to the contrary, suggesting that the French government is willing to turn a blind eye to the atrocities in Yemen in order to keep the weapons — and cash – flowing.

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Former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone told Hill.TV’s Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton  during Friday’s “Rising” show that it is possible he could be framed in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian election interference… but not for anything related to Trump or collusion or Russia… 

“I think it’s entirely possible that I could be framed on some matter that relates not to Russian collusion or WikiLeaks collaboration or advanced knowledge on the acquisition or publication of [Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman] John Podesta’s emails.”

Roger Stone: “I think it’s entirely possible that I could be framed on some matter that relates not to Russian collusion or WikiLeaks collaboration or advanced knowledge on the acquisition or publication of John Podesta’s emails.” https://t.co/6mmDcJIP82 pic.twitter.com/EJkNcR8fQs

— The Hill (@thehill) September 28, 2018

Mueller is said to be investigating whether Stone had any advance knowledge of the WikiLeaks dump of the hacked Democratic National Committee documents during the 2016 presidential race.

“There is no evidence, no witness that can claim that I’m involved in any of that or for that matter any other illegal activity pertaining to the 2016 election,” he continued. 

“At the same time, I recognize the practice of an out-of-control federal prosecutor’s ability to find underlings, squeeze them and induce them to bear false witness against a bigger fish, and I guess I’m at least a medium-sized fish,” he said. 

Notably, Stone has yet to be charged with a crime in Mueller’s investigation but has said he expects to be indicted.

See the full interview here…

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Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Unz.com,

Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court was approved on an 11-10 party-line vote Friday in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Yet his confirmation is not assured.

Sen. Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, has demanded and gotten as the price of his vote on the floor, a weeklong delay. And the GOP Senate has agreed to Democrat demands for a new FBI investigation of all credible charges of sexual abuse against the judge.

Astonishing. With a quarter century in public service, Kavanaugh has undergone six FBI field investigations. They turned up nothing like the charges of sexual misconduct leveled against him these last two weeks.

In his 30 hours of public testimony before the judiciary committee prior to Thursday, no senator had raised an issue of a sexual misconduct.

But if Brett Kavanaugh is elevated to the Supreme Court, it will be because, in his final appearance, he tore up the script assigned to him. He set aside his judicial demeanor to fight for his good name with the passion and righteous rage of the innocent and good man he believes himself to be.

He turned an inquisition into his character and conduct as a teenager into a blazing indictment of the Democratic minority for what they were doing to his reputation and his family.

Rather than play the role of penitent, Kavanaugh did what Clarence Thomas did 30 years before. He attacked the character, conduct and motives of his Democratic accusers.

And did the judge not speak the truth? With few exceptions, all four dozen Senate Democrats are determined to defeat him, even if that requires them to destroy him.

They rejected Brett Kavanaugh the day he was nominated.

Why? Because the judge is a conservative and a Catholic, hence an unreliable vote to sustain Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that discovered hidden in the Constitution a woman’s right to abort her unborn child.

The verdict on the judge came down in the hearts and minds of his enemies the moment that he was named. They had him convicted, before they met him. And once his fate was decided, the only remaining issues were where to find the dirt to bury him with, and how to make it look like they had given Kavanaugh a fair hearing.

Contrast how Kavanaugh, who has served his country with distinction for decades, was treated Thursday, and how Dr. Christine Blasey Ford was treated.

Ford was greeted with courtly courtesy by Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley. No Republican senator asked her a question. Rachel Mitchell, a prosecutor of sex crimes brought in from Arizona, quizzed her as though she were a 15-year-old girl who had just been attacked, not a 51-year-old woman whose uncorroborated accusations were designed not only to defeat a Supreme Court nomination but to destroy the career, family and future of a federal judge.

After each five-minutes of polite questioning by Mitchell, Democratic senators took turns lauding Ford’s courage, bravery and heroism in agreeing to appear.

Ford’s testimony as to what she says happened in 1982 did seem credible and compelling. Yet, to allow her accusation of attempted rape to stand without tough and thorough cross-examination, given the stakes involved, was a dereliction of Senate duty.

Consider. Ford does not recall how she got to the party where the alleged assault took place. She does not know where the party was held. She does now recall how she got home.

None of the other four she said were at the party recall being there. Her best friend, whom she apparently left behind as the lone woman in a house with a pair of drunken rapists, does not recall any such party. Nor does she recall ever having met Kavanaugh.

Consider the other charges leveled against Kavanaugh in the last two weeks: Exposing himself in the face of a freshman girl in a dorm at Yale. Participating in a series of at least 10 parties in high school where planned gang rapes of drunken and drugged women were a regular feature, with the boys lining up outside bedrooms.

In six FBI background investigations of Kavanaugh, interviewing countless friends and contemporaries from high school days, none of this wild and criminal misconduct of the early ’80s was mentioned.

“This is the most unethical sham since I’ve been in politics,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, “I hope that the American people will see through this charade.”

They had best do so. For what is being done to Kavanaugh is, if Democrats take control of Congress in November, a harbinger of what is to come. The assault on Kavanaugh, converting a man known for his integrity into a youthful Jack the Ripper in 10 days, is the playbook for what is planned for Trump.

The Kavanaugh lynching is a dress rehearsal for the impeachment of Donald Trump. And the best way to fight impeachment is the way the judge fought Thursday.

In defending yourself, go after your malevolent accusers as well.

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov vehemently denied US charges of election interference in a speech at the United Nations on Friday – slamming Washington and its international relations. 

“Baseless accusations of interference in the domestic affairs of particular countries are made while simultaneously engaging in an open campaign to undermine and topple democratically elected governments,” said Lavrov.

“[W]e see the desire of a number of Western states to retain their self-proclaimed status as ‘world leaders’ and to slow down the irreversible move toward multipolarity that is objectively taking place,” Lavrov continued. “To this end, anything goes, up to and including political blackmail, economic pressure and brute force. Such illegal actions devalue international law, which lies at the foundation of the postwar world order.”

According to the Associated Press, Lavrov later said that US-Russia relations “are bad and probably at their all-time low.” 

He expanded on that at a news conference later, giving examples of U.S. interference that included the U.S. envoy for Ukraine, Kurt Volcker, promoting efforts to replace the 2015 agreement reached by leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany to end the violence in eastern Ukraine. –AP

Lavrov also defended the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, proclaiming “we will do everything possible” to preserve it (so the Kremlin is now aligned with former Secretary of State John Kerry in this regard, for those keeping track). The Russian dignitary also slammed the Trump administration’s strikes on Syria. 

China, meanwhile, dished out far more restrained criticism of their largest trading partner – with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi defending its trade practices, and stating that China “will not be blackmailed or yield to pressure.” 

“Regarding trade frictions, China stands for a proper settlement based on rules and consensus through dialogue and consultation on an equal footing,” Yi said. 

Mr. Wang also rejected criticism of China’s actions, and said the nominally communist country has integrated itself into the world economic system.

The Chinese government issued a white paper Monday charging that the U.S. has “brazenly preached unilateralism, protectionism and economic hegemony.”

Mr. Wang, however, declined to condemn the U.S. by name, instead espousing the values of international cooperation. –WSJ

“What we need to do is to replace confrontation with cooperation and coercion with consultation,” Mr. Wang said. “We must stick together as a big family instead of forming closed circles.“

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Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

It isn’t easy to add new subway lines or new highways, and so “solutions” don’t really exist.

If there’s one thing Americans can still agree on, it’s that America needs to spend more on infrastructure which is visibly falling apart in many places. This capital investment creates jobs and satisfies everyone’s ideological requirements: investment in public infrastructure helps enterprises, local governments and residents.

Unfortunately, it isn’t a simple as spending another trillion dollars. Spending money is the easy part; actually fixing what’s broken isn’t just a matter of spending more money.

The poster child for spending trillions on infrastructure and getting very little value is Japan, which has funneled much of its fiscal stimulus over the past 30 years into vast and largely needless infrastructure projects: bridges and roadways that are lightly used being just one example.

The reason for the this low-value-creation policy is the political power of the construction industry and the convoluted political structure which gives rural areas inordinate political power over public spending. As a result, enormously expensive and utterly needless highways and bridges litter lightly populated rural communities which have become dependent on construction jobs for what little remains of the local economy.

In other words, what’s broken in Japan remains broken. Spending more on infrastructure hasn’t fixed what’s dragging the nation into permanent stagnation.

If you live in any of America’s major urban centers (or happen to visit), you know that traffic congestion is now off the scale. From Portland to Las Vegas to Atlanta, traffic jams and crushing commutes are now the norm.

Soaring housing costs have pushed workers farther into the exurbs, lengthening commutes and choking highways constructed for a much smaller populace. The population of the U.S. is now a third of a billion people, and the vast majority of the nation’s infrastructure was designed for a much smaller populace, a significant percentage of whom were expected to reside in rural counties.

Globalization has depopulated much of rural America: as the rural economy withered, people moved to urban / suburban centers, adding to the millions of new immigrant residents who typically live and work in urban cores.

If you look at charts of infrastructure needs and spending, you get a mixed bag. The heavily publicized chart of underfunded infrastructure based on data from civil engineers (hmm, no self-interest here?) suggests the U.S. has been under-investing, yet other charts show a rather steady level of spending over the decades (as a percentage of GDP) — see charts below.

While many claim public infrastructure spending has declined sharply, this chart reflects remarkably stable spending.

And let’s not forget that state and local government spending has soared far above GDP growth: local governments are spending huge sums on something, and if it isn’t infrastructure, then maybe budget priorities need to be revisited.

The problem few are willing to discuss is the impossibility of changing the big picture of congestion. While bulldozing swaths of cities to lay down a new 6-lane freeway was the go-to “solution” to congestion in the 1960s, that has fallen out of favor for a variety of reasons, including the destruction of urban neighborhoods, the inordinately high costs, the legal challenges and the terribly inconvenient reality that the new freeway quickly filled with vehicles, leaving older roadways just as choked.

“Solutions” such as new underground roadways and new subway lines end up costing tens of billions of dollars and take decades to build. It took 24 years after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake to complete a new bridge span across part of the San Francisco Bay. Nobody dares speak about it, but a very good argument can be made that America has forgotten how to build large-scale projects in a timely manner, on budget and with a level of quality that doesn’t demand immediate repairs.

The congestion isn’t just on freeways and highways. Local streets are taking a pounding as everyone seeks alternative routes, and subway systems are overloaded. The S.F. Bay Area’s BART regional (heavy-rail) transit system is spending billions of dollars repairing aging tracks and other infrastructure, and buying new cars with more room for standing commuters, reflecting the reality that riding BART is now a cattle-car experience of jostling through crowds most hours of the day and evening.

It isn’t easy to add new subway lines or new highways, and so “solutions” don’t really exist. This isn’t what people want to hear, but when you add millions of residents and vehicles to urban areas, you get congestion that can’t be solved by adding a another lane or another subway line in a decade or two.

Meanwhile, in rural America, roads are crumbling, but does it make sense to repave lightly used roads at enormous expense?

These are the discussions we need to have, but instead we’re opting for the magical-thinking and oh-so-easy “fix” of everything will be fine if we just spend another trillion or two.

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